I could tell she knew what I was feeling -- we all are orphans in Zombieland.--Jesse Eisenberg as Columbus

Up (2009)

Adventure is out there! -- Christopher Plummer as Charles Muntz

Now, we're gonna walk to the falls quickly and quietly with no rap music or flashdancing. -– Ed Asner as Carl Frederickson

Scream all you want, small mailman. None of your mailman friends can hear you. -- Bob Peterson as Alpha and Delroy Lindo as Beta

Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)

If what I think is happening is happening - it better not be. -- Meryl Streep as Mrs. Fox

Why a fox? Why not a horse, or a beetle, or a bald eagle? I'm saying this more as, like, existentialism, you know? Who am I? And how can a fox ever be happy without, you'll forgive the expression, a chicken in its teeth? --George Clooney as Mr. Fox

Basically, there's three grabbers, three taggers, five twig runners, and a player at Whackbat. Center tagger lights a pine cone and chucks it over the basket and the whack-batter tries to hit the cedar stick off the cross rock. Then the twig runners dash back and forth until the pine cone burns out and the umpire calls hotbox. Finally, you count up however many score-downs it adds up to and divide that by nine.-- Owen Wilson as Coach Skip

I should have listened to my lawyer.-- George Clooney as Mr. Fox

Monsters vs. Aliens (2009)

Once again, a UFO has landed in America, the only country UFOs ever seem to land in. --News Reporter

This place is an X-file, wrapped in a cover-up and deep-fried in a paranoid conspiracy. -- Kiefer Sutherland as General W.R. Monger

Don't think of it as prison. Think of it as a hotel that you can never leave, 'cause it's locked from the outside. -- Kiefer Sutherland as General W.R. Monger

Oh, honey, ever since you were a little baby, I knew... you would save the world from an alien invasion. -- Julie White as Wendy Murphy

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)

She's only interested in you because she thinks you're the Chosen One. -- Emma Watson as Hermione GrangerBut I am the Chosen One. -- Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter

Times like these, dark times, they do funny things to people. They can tear them apart. -- Mark Williams as Arthur Weasley

Just step back. Have another look at it! Systems that find meaning in numbers are a dime in dozen. Why? Because people see what they want to see. -- Ben Mendelsohn as Phil Bergman

Where the Wild Things Are (2009)

This is all yours. You're the owner of this world. -- Jams Gandolfini as Carol

Star Trek (2009)

Don't pander to me, kid. One tiny crack in the hull and our blood boils in thirteen seconds. Solar flare might crop up, cook us in our seats. And wait till you're sitting pretty with a case of Andorian shingles, see if you're so relaxed when your eyeballs are bleeding. Space is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence. -- Karl Urban as Dr. Leonard McCoy ("Bones")

The purpose of the test is to experience fear, fear in the face of certain death, to accept that fear, and maintain control of oneself and one's crew. This is the quality expected in every Starfleet captain. -- Zachary Quinto as Spock

I don't believe in no-win scenarios. -- Chris Pine as James T. Kirk

I suffer from aviophobia - it means fear of dying in something that flies! -- Karl Urban as Dr. Leonard McCoy ("Bones")

Angels and Demons (2009)

Religion is flawed because man is flawed. -- Armin Mueller-Stahl as Cardinal Strauss

Watchmen (2009)

What, in life, does not deserve celebrating? -- Matthew Goode as Adrian Veidt

Once you realize what a joke everything is, being the Comedian is the only thing that makes sense. -- Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Edward Blake

December 01, 2009

Peleg Doddleding Affianced

On Monday, "Cyber Monday" in the consumer-crazed U.S., I was reading an article on Slate over lunch about hiring conditions in the current economy. It was an interesting article, but it appears to have been removed. Libelous, no doubt. The subject was names - more specifically, the prevalence of prejudicial hiring tendencies by U.S. businesses - in a recession, the job market is a buyers' not a sellers' market.

The author's research of the U.S. companies suggested that the less anglicized or less traditional someone's name is, the less luck they're having at getting an interview, let alone being hired. If true, this is either a sad indication of social regression, or a commentary on how unready many people are at step 1 of parenting - naming that small wiggling creature in your arms. In the U.S., there has been a trend away from names that mean something, to names that are purely phonetic. If Johnny Cash named his son Sue nowadays, I doubt anyone would notice. They might assume his parents were lawyers.

I have a particular personal appreciation for this subject area, having a name that is fairly uncommon on this continent. I wasn't always keen on my name as a child or as a student. Both children and adults abbreviated it or mangled it out of ignorance and malice. I was always still writing my name on my paper and filling in bubbles on computer scan sheets when the rest of the class was already on question number three. It did, however, give me great self confidence to realize how many so-called learn-ed adults could not pronounce a simple dipthong.

In later life my name has proven itself to be a worthy companion. Anyone who knows me can easily find me. I can identify friend or foe over the telephone in a single syllable - nay - in the pause before a syllable is uttered. I even found a Very Patient Spouse exactly two dozen years ago, who made no bones about trading her Chinese name for my Greek one.

And even though she lived by the sea, our situation was NOT that of Peleg and his new acquaintence in one of this week's added poems - a piece of light verse by Don Marquis, featuring an insecure groom and his imperfect bride.

A Seaside Romance

"MY NAME," I said, "is Peleg Doddleding, And Doddleding has been my name since birth." And having told this girl this shameful thing I bowed my head and waited for her mirth.

She did not laugh. I looked at her, and she, With wistful gladness in her yellow eyes, Swept with her gradual gaze the mocking sea. Then dried her gaze and swept the scornful skies.

I thought perhaps she had not heard aright. "My name," I said again, "is Doddleding!" Thinking she would reply, "Ah, then, goodnight-- no love of mine round such a name could cling!"

We'd met upon the beach an hour before, And our loves lept together, flame and flame. I loved. She loved. We loved. "She'll love no more," I moaned, "when she learns Doddleding's my name!"

She was not beautiful, nor did she seem The sort of person likely to be good; Her outcast manner 'twas that bade me dream If any one could stand my name she could.

She seemed a weakly, sentimental thing, Viscious, no doubt, and dull and somewhat wried. I said once more, "I'm Mister Doddleding!" Feebly she smiled. I saw she had no pride.